Gunshot
by Tedd.E.Bare
Summary: when a young mystery novelist is found dead and her Marine Captain father missing, the NCIS team and those at the Twelfth Precinct join forces to solve the mystery. However is everything as it seems or were there more sinister plans afoot?
1. Chapter 1

A.N.: okay this is my first NCIS, Castle and crossover fanfiction, so i hope I do all three justice. this one has been in my head all day now, i feel like it's... it's worth writing down. so i hope you enjoy it, despite it being a WIP and relatively short. now i'm not a fan of author notes, so this will probably be the only one until the very end, please leave a review, i really enjoy criticism and hey burn me if you like.

Disclaimer: my usual disclaimer is found on my profile, but this is the first tv one i've done, so; All names, places, organisations and similar are fictitious and all familiar content is owned solely by Paramount, Bellisarius, ABC Studios and Beacon Pictures. no money is being made from this story.

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><p>A single shot rings out in the darkened house. A small figure slumps over on the writing desk, a hand sliding off the laptop's keyboard. Blood begins to soak a book manuscript. A single shell casing drops to the floor, rolling under a couch out of sight. A masked killer puts away his gun and leaves; his job is done.<p>

[0]

Detective Kate Beckett sits at her desk, head in hands as she mentally prepares herself for a day's worth of paperwork, Detective's Esposito and Ryan are nowhere to be seen, neither is her partner Castle. She stifles a snort, Richard Castle, mystery author extraordinaire, hating on paperwork. A contradiction of terms for anyone who did not know the man. The elevator opens behind her and three figures step out, one holding two coffees, the other two bantering over who was better at archery.

Castle leans around her puts down her coffee in front of her bowed head, surprising her for a moment,

'So, I hear that today's agenda is paperwork. Where do we start?' he says smiling.

She cocks an eyebrow, not believing that he's serious.

'You're going to help me do paperwork?' she asks incredulous.

'I distinctly remember the last time I opted out of helping you with paperwork ended up with me being held hostage in a bank with my mother. So yes, paperwork.'

She hides a smirk, 'There's no murder in our jurisdiction to solve today, just a whole lot of files to write up.'

'There's no murder in your jurisdiction to solve _yet_,' he corrects her whilst reaching across for a pen, 'it's still early.'

[0]

Tony DiNozzo was napping at his desk as he waited for his team and boss to arrive at work. With feet propped up on the desk and his head tilting sideways onto his shoulder, a mouthful of saliva was not far off from becoming drool on his chin. In front of his desk stands both Ziva and Timothy, suppressing their laughter.

'Tony!' calls out Ziva, shocking him from sleep. He almost falls from his seat as he jolts back into full consciousness,

'I wasn't asleep!' he claimed,

'Oh really, so the snoring was just to throw us off guard?' jibed Timothy,

'Very funny McGeek, but I don't snore.' Tony shot back. Ziva smirked at them both before turning to her desk.

'Do we have a case to go to?' she asks them both after she has stowed her bag.

'Not as of yet, haven't seen Gibbs today.'

As if by coincidence, or good timing on his part, Gibbs chose that moment to open the doors of M-Tac and make his way down the stairs,

'Pick up your bags,' he said striding past them, 'we got a case.'

[0]

With sunlight peeking through the closed curtains, the house still had a creepy feel to it. That feeling was not reduced by the body with a single gunshot wound to the head, and a pile of dried blood gluing eight hundred or so pages of a novel together.

Kate Beckett strode into the room, closely followed by Castle and Detective Esposito. Lanie Parish was already there, her kit ready to go.

The officer currently in charge of the scene briefed Beckett on the victim,

'Name's Leanne Doyle, twenty-two, university student and budding novelist writing her second mystery novel, home schooled, dad's listed as a Navy captain, mother's deceased. As far as we can tell she suffered a single gunshot wound to the back of the head, we recovered a casing under one of the couches, looks like a .38.' Kate nodded as she took in the scene; the young woman had been working on her computer when she was killed, her long brown hair fanned out along the desk, falling over her shoulders and across her face.

Scanning the room, she looked for anything out of place, 'What are we looking at here?' she wondered aloud.

The officer who had briefed her jumped in, 'Nothing was taken, wallet and cash are in her handbag by the door, phone, mp3 and other valuables were untouched. It looks as though the shooter came in, delivered the shot and left, we found no prints, no blood trail, no evidence of a struggle, hell it doesn't look like she got a chance to turn around.'

Beckett thanked the cop and turned back towards her team. The first thing she noticed was Castle expression, it was one of horror.

'What's wrong?' she asked him,

'Leanne Doyle, the young mystery writer,' he said quietly, 'I knew her.'

'How?' she asked,

'She used to come to my writer's workshops I held on a weekend a few years back, I still remember the first time I met her. It was a Stanton library, she couldn't have been older than sixteen, yet she had not only read all of my books, but all of the top rated mystery novels you could think of, and a whole piles of ones you wouldn't have. I remember her because she came in with a copy of Flowers For Your Grave, which she had not only done an edit that would make my editor cry with humiliation, but she had also annotated it with things she would have done differently. It was a fascinating read, I borrowed it for a fortnight, she let me get copies of all her notes. She was a brilliant kid, I got her signed up to my publisher and her first novel, Gunshot was an instant hit a couple years back.'

Beckett nodded, vaguely remembering the book he was referring to, and put an hand on his arm in comfort. Lanie had moved the dead woman to the floor and was going through the preliminaries. She looked up from her position on the floor, her eyes flickering back to Castle's stricken face before addressing Kate,

'T.o.d. estimated about two am this morning, which would coincide with the sound the neighbours heard but passed off as a backfiring car. Single gunshot wound to the head, size would put it at a .38 calibre, shot from a distance, there's no sign of gunshot residue on the body, no burns that would coincide with it being a close-up shot and there's no other visible external injuries.

'Right, we need to get in contact with anyone who has seen her recently, neighbours, friends, employers, the friend that discovered her, what about her dad, you said he was a marine?'

[0]

Gibb's team pulled up the curb outside the house to discover an investigation well underway. Ziva, Tony and Tim went straight to work, cameras and evidence markers at the ready. After looking around for a moment Gibbs spotted woman who was clearly in charge, her uniform stating she was an NYPD detective.

Walking over to the woman he noticed that his team had given up on attempting to gather evidence, as the NYPD has already done the work and had already started bagging anything considered to be evidence.

The NYPD detective noticed Gibbs and made her way over to them,

'Detective Kate Beckett, NYPD Homicide , can I help you?' she announced as she reached them.

'Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs, NCIS.' she shook his hand,

'Sir, with all due respect I think you'll find that this murder is wasn't of a marine, the victim's father was, but records show he's on current deployment.'

'That's the issue Detective Beckett, Captain Doyle returned from active duty last week, last seen leaving the airport and getting into a cab. You're dealing with a civilian homicide, I've got a missing marine.'

Beckett nodded, knowing it would be useless to argue, 'Sir for our departments to work this case together, you would have to contact my Captain.'

'And who might that be Detective?' he asked as he reached for his phone.

'Captain Victoria Gates, Sir.'

[0]

A phone rang inside Captain Gate's office, caller ID showing it wasn't one of her regular callers. She picked up the phone with slight trepidation, 'Special Agent Gibbs, long time no hear.'

'How you doing Iron?' came the reply.

[0]

Kate Beckett did her best to hide her shock as the NCIS agent referred to her captain by a nickname only used behind her back. She waited as Gibbs explained the situation to her and asked how easy it would be to coincide investigations on the case. From what she could hear her captain was delighted to have NCIS on board, and would glad to host his team at the precinct.

Gibbs readily agreed, stating that it would have more room than NCIS headquarters, but they would be able to access each other's files for the duration of the case, and should it become necessary, they could all use the technology provided at NCIS HQ.

After that phone call was done, Gibbs excused himself to make another to Leon Vance, his boss to get the final stamp of approval. Tony stepped up and introduced himself and the rest of his team, stating it would be a pleasure to work the case with the NYPD.

Castle had snapped out of his stupor and rejoined Beckett over by the agents. Beckett introduced him as a civilian investigator aiding her team, much to the amusement of Tony.

'You're Richard Castle, the author, right?' asked Timothy,

'That's right,' he paused, 'Special Agent McGee.'

'I'm a mystery author myself actually, got a couple published so far and another in the works.' Timothy replied.

'Really?' Castle's interest grew, 'which ones? I don't think I've ever read any by a McGee…'

'Pseudonym.' was Timothy's explanation, 'I write the Deep Six series.'

Castle's eyes grew wide as he turned to his partner, 'Deep Six!' he turned back to McGee, 'I knew that kind of awesome couldn't be made up! I tried to get a real name out of my publisher so I could discuss plot development and experience, but they were tight lipped on that front, and I couldn't find a Thom. E. Gemcity anywhere!'

Beckett rolled her eyes at Castle's praise, and took to watching the other NCIS agents as they waited for their boss to finalise the agreement with their superior. Agent DiNozzo seemed amused at the author's conversation, quietly whispering a jibe to the agent beside him, a comment that was met with an elbow to the ribs and a 'Shut up Tony.'

[0]


	2. Chapter 2

Back at the twelfth Precinct, the bullpen had become a flurry of organised chaos. Extra temporary desks were added to accommodate the NCIS agents, Beckett was reminded of the first time the 3XK killer came around, Agent Shaw's team of FBI agents filled all their rooms back them, so this was a minor fill-up in comparison.

Ryan and Esposito instantly got along with Agents DiNozzo and David, who shared similar humour to their own. Watching Castle and McGee talk in the Bullpen from the break room about their novels, Tony asked them why an author, who wasn't even a cop, was allowed to help solve homicides. Esposito and Ryan shared a grin before talking about prior cases that he'd helped to solve with his unusual way of thinking, adding that Beckett also liked having him around. Tony's wiped the smirk off his face when he noticed Ziva's unimpressed expression.

The detective in question was in Captain Gate's office, being pulled up to speed on the situation with the missing marine by Gibbs, Vance and Gates. The father of their victim was caught on security footage leaving the airport and getting into a cab, he'd been dropped off in town where he'd withdrawn over half his saving from a bank account and then disappeared.

Abby Sciuto's video call came up on screen with the ballistics report from the bullet pulled by Lanie and Ducky down at the NCIS morgue.

'It's definitely a .38 calibre,' she announced to the room, 'I identified it as a .38 Super, but that's not going to narrow the gun type easily, these guys are common, a whole pile of drug cartels and shooting clubs use that kind of bullet.' Beckett hid her surprise as the forensic specialist dressed as a Goth started slurping on a Caf-Pow in a bright pink and green cup, 'Also, Detective Beckett, your officers picked up the casing which matches the bullet, so estimating the trajectory, your killer was standing in the opposite side of the room when he fired the shot,' a beeping started off screen and she disappeared from sight for a moment, 'And the lab just came back, there was trace amount of gun powder residue on the front door, we're talking almost an ten metre shot here. That is a helluva shot Gibbs, we're not looking at a rookie here.'

'Thanks Abbs,' Gibbs replied warmly before the video disconnected.

[0]

After Beckett was finished in the captain's office, she called over Castle to help set up their murder board.

'Have you got any outrageous theories here?' she asked,

'Well, so far I only know what happened with the original crime scene, what's with the NCIS guys?'

'Victim's father was a marine, he finished up duty a week ago and arrived back in the states, got in a cab, got out in the city, withdrew a pile of cash and dropped off the radar. NCIS fear an abduction, terrorism, extortion, multiple murders. These guys deal with international events all the time, marines going AWOL, murders of families, but they deal with the stuff directly linking to the Navy, our Vic was the missing marine's only family, but the case still hits our jurisdiction, because we don't know if it's a random shooting, or if it's linked to his disappearance, so for now it's a joint effort with NYPD and NCIS.

Castle nodded, looking around for the other detectives and the NCIS agents. He was brought back to the board by Beckett when she said again,

'So, how we doing with theories?'

'I got nothing.'

'Really, nothing, after four and a half years, you're finally pulling up blank?'

'It's not that!' he defended, 'but I knew this woman, she was a bit like me with her writing, she knew what she was doing, she was careful to do the research, she got her facts right and built a story around those.'

'So you're saying that her novels were taken from real life events?' Beckett clarified.

'Yes! Exactly, I follow you around and get inspiration for Nikki Heat, Agent McGee actually lives out his stories, so Leanne Doyle must have taken her plots from life experiences.'

'And something she wrote in her book angered someone, because it was confidential, and she was killed for it?'

'It makes sense to me.'

'Yeah well, it doesn't explain the missing father, he pulls out a pile of cash and goes to ground, what's that about?' she asked.

'Self-preservation?'

'He got back a week ago, if he was so worried about retribution for something written in a novel, why wouldn't he have gone out of his way to protect his daughter?'

'Maybe he couldn't, maybe he knew he would never make it to her, maybe thought he was protecting her by not going to her.'

Beckett hummed under her breath as she thought through the possibilities and implications of the missing marine and Castle's theory.

[0]

Agent Gibbs and Captain Gates watched from the windows of her office as their combined team worked through the few leads they had in regards to the murder and missing marine. When first confronted with Castle's theory about retribution for something written in her novel, Gibbs stared at the Detective and her civilian partner as though they were crazy. After hearing the author's explanation about using real life experiences, a notion heavily backed up by Agent McGee, Gibbs and Gates allowed Castle and Beckett to sift through Leanne's notes and an unspoiled copy of her latest manuscript, the original being held in evidence coated with blood.

Timothy, Ziva and Tony were reviewing security footage from various cameras the day the marine went missing, they had located him eating at a small diner an hour after his cash withdrawal, by then he had changed his clothes and was no longer carrying his heavy army pack.

Esposito and Ryan were talking with Leanne's friends and neighbours as to when she was seen last and if anything suspicious had been noticed.

Sitting back down, a coffee for each of them, Gibbs and Gates reminisced about the last time they saw each other, when she was heading Internal Affairs, and he had just started heading his new NCIS team.

'Why do you have a writer in your precinct?' he asked bluntly, still not understanding the reasons for having a civilian on the team.

'The full reason evades me still too,' she replied, shaking her head, 'but the Mayor likes him, so he's become a permanent fixture here. Beckett seems fond of him, defending him when he's being a pain in the ass. I guess he provides a different point of view when approaching the mind of a killer, he writes about them so he's got a different mind frame from a cop. From what I've seen he's actually not too bad in aiding cases.'

'What would happen if you banned him?' Gibbs asked with a small smirk.

'Firstly I'd have the mayor on the phone berating me, then I'd have a strike from half the precinct, and I'd probably lose my best detective to a precinct where writer boy would be welcomed.' Gates replied just as amused. 'I'm not in favour of having a civilian here either, but I'm not blind to how much of a favourite he is here.'

Gibbs nodded and turned to watch the duo rifling through a huge box of papers in search of clues.

[0]

Ziva and Tony had exhausted their eyes watching hours of video footage in an attempt to find their missing marine, they had a few quick shots of him, the bank teller, the diner, walking past a video store and past a jewellery store in town. Each time they were only a few second of footage, he was always casually walking, dressed the same and seemed in no hurry to be anywhere.

Looking around the bullpen they took note of the officer's around them. Tony hadn't worked homicide since he was younger, working for a few years in Baltimore before going to NCIS after discovering his partner was a dirty cop. It was Ziva's first real time working in a police department precinct, having spent much of her time working as an liaison officer or an operative.

They spent a few moments watching the detective and her partner shuffling a few papers, Castle having discovered a few pages of what appeared to be notes about an stint in Afghanistan, the writer was writing down dot points, summarising the pages. Detective Beckett too had discovered a list of locations with a map of Afghanistan stapled to it.

Gibbs strode into the bullpen, Captain Gates a step behind him,

'What've we got?' he asked them all.

Tony and Ziva shot into action, accustomed to Gibb's way of working.

'Boss, we got under a half dozen shots of this guy strolling through town on the day of his arrival back in the states.' Tony announced,

'And his credit cards, and phone have not been used at all in months, GPS locator couldn't work, he must have it turned off.' put in Ziva.

'If he has it with him at all,' put in Castle.

The NCIS agents turned to look at him,

'Well the guy's just come back from a 9 month stint in Afghanistan, he get's back here and goes to ground, if he's running with cash in an attempt to fly under the radar, the chances are low he's going to be stupid enough to turn on his phone. Let alone keep it with him, if I wanted to keep out of sight I wouldn't keep traceable electronics on me, that would be the first thing to ditch.'

Ziva leant over to get a better view of Beckett, 'Is he always like that?' she asked.

Kate barely looked up from the memo she was reading, 'yep, Castle's pretty good at pointing out the obvious, but he's right. A Navy captain who doesn't want to be found would know electronics could be tracked, and would dispose of them as soon as possible. If he's got a phone it'll be new and it won't be in his name.'

'What have you two uncovered in Leanne's notes?' Captain Gates asked.

'Firstly, whoever she was talking to had no respect for secrecy. This operation she's got written down here is about uncovering and eliminating a suspected terror cell outside a small Afghanistan village in the north east, surely that would have been top secret, high level clearance kind of plans.' said Castle, handing over the notes to Gibbs.

'She's got a lot of notes that appear to have come from someone high-up, there's maps, lists, names, plans, the lot. There's no way a twenty-two year old mystery novelist needs this sort of information for a novel.' supplied Beckett as she handed over a handful of paper.

'Heck, even I wouldn't need that kind of information to write a best seller, she's can't have just been working on a novel, there's no trace of any of this stuff in her manuscript, she had to been using it for something else.' put in Castle.

Gibb's phone rang at that moment, it was Abby and she wanted a video conference.

[0]


	3. Chapter 3

Abby and Timothy had spent the day working with the laptop Leanne had been writing on before she died. The original system had been damaged by the blood, but luckily the internal hardware was undamaged so they were able to access all of her files.

With the group at Precinct Twelve watching them on screen, including the people Abby didn't recognise she and Timothy detailed all of Leanne's files. Hundreds of photos from war zones, more notes suitable only for high access clearance viewing, a few book manuscripts and a huge file that they discovered was a work in progress exposé on the 'truth' about the war in Afghanistan. It was a long article, over fifty pages of documents, using photos, maps and lists as appendices to reiterate the message.

Abby was unable to pinpoint a bias in the writing, telling them that it was exactly that - an exposé. Gibbs asked if they could find the origins for the photos, when and where they were taken and if the file had been sent to anyone.

Abby nodded and hung up. As soon as they were alone again, Abby brought up a screen shot she had taken of the group at the precinct and turned on Timothy,

'Now spill, tell me all about them.'

[0]

Castle was sitting at his usual spot beside Detective Beckett's desk, sifting through the remains of Leanne's notes that hadn't been confiscated by Gibbs and his team. As a civilian he was not permitted to view any material pertaining to a military operations, especially one a as current as the notes contained.

Sighing with frustration he compiled through the rest of her notes, looking for something, anything that would prove useful. Descriptions of environments, people, events were there by the dozen, some scraps of paper holding single words or two names.

There was nothing.

Kate was in the break room with Ziva making coffees, and he could see them in animated conversation through the slits in the blinds. He took a moment to admire his detective, how she coped with the frustration of a lack of general progress.

She made her way out of the break room and handed over his coffee with a small smile.

'What're you doing with those notes?' she asked,

'I was seeing if there was anything she had written anything in her notes, like with hidden information, or something like that.'

'Like in code or something?'

'Yeah, but there's nothing I can connect to either her stories or the article she was writing. They're all poetic descriptions of places and people and random names.'

'Anything good?'

'Um, let's see,' he shuffled a few sheets over, '"she was wearing a light green sundress, her short blonde hair curled around her neck, the key was on a fine silver chain around her neck" … and then there's "he entered the bedroom slowly, the dresser was overturned, clothes scattered everywhere, the mirror cracked, as though a single punch was delivered to the very middle of the glass. Shards from a shattered vase lay by the door…"'

'They're very, uh, vivid.' Beckett commented.

'Yeah, but there's no substance to them, none of them connect together, they're abstracts without a common factor.'

'So you're saying that it's the military documents that Agent Gibbs took were the only thing worthwhile pursuing from her pile of notes?'

'As much as it pains me, yes.'

'Ah.'

[0]

Timothy had finished his explanation of the precinct twelve team, and their author aide who had proven to be a insightful guy who helped solve a lot of murders over the past few years. He included his theory that the female detective and the writer had something more than just a professional working relationship.

'You can always swap your theories with their medical examiner, Dr Parish, she's downstairs with Ducky working on the body.' replied Abby, a smirk forming.

'Why, have you spoken to her?'

'Of course! I went down when they first got here, I though she was a new ME, but then Ducky filled me in on the situation and, this is the coolest case ever!'

'What do you mean Abbs?'

'Inter-departmental co-operation, this is the stuff people dream about. We're always working with Fornell and the FBI, but now we're down on the ground, working with regular people instead of terrorists for once!' she exclaimed.

Tim shook his head at her and turned back to the computer that held off of Leanne Doyle's files on it.

'So we've dated some of these photos, but we're no closer to figuring out where they were taken, you got any ideas?'

[0]

Gibbs outright refused Detective Beckett and Castle's request to know what the documents he took pertained to. If there was to be any viewing of any documents, that person would need to have a level two security clearance, at least.

Beckett did her best to remain calm and not show her frustrations; she kept her face blank whilst in the same room as her captain and the disapproving, grey-haired agent she had begun to dislike. When permitted to leave she strode back to her desk, passing Ziva and Tony whilst muttering 'stubborn ass.' under her breath. The two of them smirked at each other, know exactly who she was referring to.

Ziva watched Beckett sit back down at her desk, her brow creased in anger as she unconsciously played with whatever object she kept on her necklace chain. It appeared to be a small ring, but from that distance it was hard to be sure.

Tucking away her daily reminder of why she became a cop, Kate sat up in her chair and twisted until she was able to scrutinise her murder board. It was annoyingly empty, with a lack of motive, suspect and even evidence. She had a light bulb moment just then, and picked up her phone to see if Agent Shaw was available.

It was hard to tell if Captain Gates and Agent Gibbs were angry at Beckett or impressed with her initiative in calling in the FBI profiler for a consult.

Kate could tell however that both of them were impressed with her credentials and talent, however that may have been more to do with the way she profiled Tony perfectly after a minute of being in his company when she arrived.

Agent Shaw assessed the murder board, and was brought up to speed by Gibbs who made it perfectly clear that none of them would be allowed to access the materials he had confiscated earlier as they were current military plans, and Director Vance had taken them back to NCIS for further analysis.

[0]

Agent Jordan Shaw provided the team with a thorough profile of both the missing marine and the possible killer. She told them they needed to up the ante on finding the father, because the marine would be the key to unravelling the story.

Castle's eyes lit up as she spoke and without disturbing the others pulled out the box containing Leanne's notes and snuck off to the now-empty break room. There was a story, but it had been too neatly wrapped to be seen at first sight.

It took a few minutes for Beckett to realise Castle was gone, and found him heavily concentrating on the letters he had earlier disregarded.

'What is it?' she asked him

'They key!' he replied, not looking up. 'It was here all along, a story that needed to be unravelled, I just didn't see it because it was so cleverly hidden.'

'Castle, I thought we disregarded this earlier, you said so yourself that the letters didn't have a common factor.'

'I did, but I was wrong. They're not observations about random people, they're experiences she's had that she's disguised as being poetic descriptions of random events. The one with the key necklace, the trashed bedroom with the cracked mirror and broken vase. There was a small report in her file a few years ago, she and her dad came home to a trashed house, nothing was reported stolen, so the incident was all but forgotten. Then the dad gets deployed, the daughter's alone, left with writing her books, and when he comes back, she ends up dead. There is something much bigger than what we've been looking at here, this can't be some random recent event, this has been coming for years now. If I'm right, which I often am, there will be something, found in these notes that will lead us to something.'

'You're being awfully vague here Castle, and I don't mean you're going out on a limb. I mean, you're literally picked out the most obscure, fragile branch you could on the entire metaphorical tree and putting a hell of a lot of weight onto it.'

'What else have we got to go on though? We don't have a clue as to where the dad is, we have no idea who shot her, the scene was clean, not even a mob hit would leave that little evidence behind, we didn't manage to pull a single fingerprint from the house, just a pile of gunshot residue and a slug. Coming up with ridiculous theories is my job, and with Alexis off at college, and my mother off on her Broadway tour, I'll just go home to an empty house and come up with more weird theories that probably mean I'm going insane.'

Beckett pursed her lips for a moment, sneaking a quick glance to see if the group outside were watching before sitting down next to him.

'Where do we start?'

[0]

Esposito and Ryan got back to the precinct as the day was turning to dusk. They had interviewed all known family and friends of the victim, compiling an extensive report with her last being seen the night before she died, having gone out for a quick take-away dinner with a friend where they had talked about the friend being offered an accounting job in a different state and whether she ought to take it.

Ryan ducked his head into the break room to see both Beckett and Castle sitting at the table, next to one another reading the late author's notes and organising them in a way that made no sense to him.

'Beckett, we spent all day interviewing friends of Leanne,' he announced, interrupting their sorting process, 'last seen at around nine-thirty pm after she and a friend had dinner together, nothing after that, no phone calls, texts or check-ins on Facebook.'

Beckett nodded and the crease between her eyebrows appeared again. So far everything was turning up as a dead end, she was placing all her hope in this theory Castle had come up with, praying that it held something substantial.

[0]


	4. Chapter 4

Agent Gibbs could see the homicide team in the break room going over the disregarded notes, the author had apparently come up with a hair-brained idea and with a lack of other useful leads they were pursuing it.

He couldn't help but scoff to himself, it was getting beyond frustrating. They still had a missing marine, and a murder to solve, what were they doing perusing some random, insignificant notes written by their young victim?

He stood around the Twelfth Precinct's homicide bullpen, keeping a close eye on his team. They had exhausted video footage searching for their marine, and were now making phone calls to banks, Ducky and the marine corps where Captain Doyle was stationed.

Detective Beckett rushed out of the adjoining room holding a couple of sheets of notes. 'We think we've found something.'

The group surrounded the writer and the detective as they explained what they had been doing, reviewing the notes, and attempting to 'read between the lines'.

'It was just that,' Castle said excitedly, 'reading between the lines, literally.'

'The first one Castle read out was a description about a blonde girl in a sundress,' Detective Beckett explained, 'the next line read: "the key was on a fine silver chain around her neck", the next one reads, "his face stung from the cold, the box in the freezer had frosted over.' and a third is about how diamonds are a girl's best friend. We think, and I know it's a long shot, that Leanne Doyle was involved in something bigger than her books, bigger than her exposé; I think these clues lead to something hidden at her home, something she was trying to hide."

A terse silence filled the room, Agent Gibbs looked to Captain Gates, who was in turn scrutinising her detective, trying to determine whether she ought to take the idea seriously. Finally she cracked, and let out a small decisive nod.

'Go,' she said firmly, 'report back if you find anything worth noting.' she spared Castle a severe glance and turned to her office.

[0]

Ziva and Tony could hardly believe their eyes as they watched the detective and the writer prepare to leave. In their history of crime fighting, they had never seen a lead pulled together from such obscure resources.

Tony turned to Esposito who was writing up a report on a different case, 'do you guys, do that often, just make up a mishy-mashy attempt at a lead and go with that?'

Esposito cocked an eyebrow and smirked at the agents, 'Castle's better at this then you've seen. The first time we saw him there was this case that looked like the killer was a fan, the vics had been killed in almost the same way as was done in his books, so we brought him in, got his insight. We thought case open, case closed when we found our suspect - we got a fan letter with his prints on it. It was Castle who figured out that the dude had been set up by the brother of one of the vics, all because the murders weren't done the same as it was in his books and that the guy murdered his sister to inherit the entirety of his dad's estate to settle his debts. He picked it out from the type of flowers left at the crime scene.'

'Are you serious?' asked Ziva

'Yeah, then he got they mayor's permission to tag alongside us because he found "inspiration" in Beckett for his new novels, and the rest is history." said Ryan.

'Are they together, as in "together" together?' asked Tony

'Not yet,' snickered Esposito, 'we've been waiting for it for the past three or so years, but if they are, the keep it well under wraps.'

'Gibbs has a set of rules that he enforces, I can't remember the number, I think it's number eleven-'

'It's number twelve, Tony, eleven is walk away after the job is done.' shot in Ziva,

'Number twelve then, is "never date a co-worker". Gibbs is adamant on that one, he says it blurs the lines of professionalism too much. Plus the whole messy break-up stuff kinda dulls down the mood in the office.'

Esposito shot a look at is partner,

'Don't look at me like that Javier, I'm married.' replied Ryan. 'Besides, you and Lanie are tight now.'

[0]

After being waved through by the guard on duty, Castle and Beckett entered the Doyle house, they double checked every room, making sure they weren't missing anything. They entered the kitchen and focussed on the combined fridge and freezer. It was a large one, usually owned by large families, and the insanely rich.

Opening the freezer, they were confronted with a solid wall of ice. The compartment had frozen over to the point of it being near impenetrable. Sighing, Beckett opened the kitchen drawers in search of something to help them break through.

'Couldn't you just shoot it?' asked Castle,

'No, I risk damaging whatever is in there, we're going to have to do it manually.' she replied as she lifted out a Crème Brule torch, some dishcloths, a metal spatula and filled up the kettle. Castle took the torch from her, claiming it needed an experienced hand, before lighting it up and turning the flame to blue.

Snickering he pointed it at the ice, and soon pockets of air formed in the ice block. Beckett made sure the cloths caught most of the water as she waited for the kettle to boil. Shining her flashlight into the compartment, she could see that there was a distinct lack of food in it, but a smallish box was in the far left hand corner.

'How on earth do you think she managed to get an entire freezer to turn into an iceblock without all that water escaping?' she asked 'This thing is looking pretty solid.'

Castle, squinting at the ice quickly pulled the torch away and turned it off. 'Because it's not completely solid. Look here,' he pointed to an almost invisible line not far from the pit he had been working on, 'there's a join in the ice there, it's not one big block, it's several blocks.'

'That would have taken a lot of time and effort to construct.' she ventured.

'A lot of effort to go to hiding something.'

[0]

It was well into the night when Captain Gates heard anything back from her detective, Castle's assumptions and vague lead had proved rather fruitful.

Diamonds. Blood diamonds to be exact. A net worth of over a million dollars. The box in the freezer had been carefully packaged, area of origin, date of extraction and estimated worth carefully marked on a receipt inside.

'What the hell are Sudanese blood diamonds doing inside this woman's freezer?' she demanded when they had arrived back, hands frozen, but box intact.

'Uh, Boss,' called over DiNozzo, 'I think you might wanna hear this.'

'We checked Captain Doyle's flight home from Afghanistan, turns out the flight he was on made a stop over in Sudan on their way back to drop off supplies and pick up troops.' called out McGee.

'Even then,' said Beckett, 'We have no evidence to suggest that Captain Doyle had seen his daughter after arriving back, he got here and went to ground. None of their neighbours have seen him since he was deployed.'

'Where was the Captain stationed before his Afghanistan trip?' asked Castle, 'Maybe he got them on a prior tour.'

'Er, records show he spent a year… deployed for peacekeeping in Sudan.' replied McGee.

'Okay, so you have a marine Captain who comes home after his tour, somehow he's gotten hold of illegal diamonds, whether he intends to sell them, or expose someone is unknown, but he's still got them, he gives them to his daughter with strict instructions to keep them hidden, safe and never tell anyone about them.' Castle sits back as his story engages everyone, 'He goes on another tour, thinking no one knows about the diamonds but him and his daughter. However on his way home, he meets someone who knew about them, or tells someone; and they decide they want in, or they want to eliminate him and his daughter to prevent news of the diamonds getting out.'

'That doesn't explain why he didn't take the diamonds in the first place.' put in Beckett,

'Maybe he didn't need to, I mean, whoever killed Leanne knew she would never give them up. So they killed her, and then waited for the case to go cold before looking. I mean, it took us over an hour to dig through all that ice before we extracted the box.'

[0]

Gibbs was prepared at this point to take back his previous criticisms towards the author. After the discovery of illegally mined diamonds, all by his interpretation of disregarded notes, his esteem of Castle had risen a notch or two.

The knowledge that there were diamonds coming out of Sudan came as a surprise to him. He knew of the diamond trade in Sierra Leone and Angola where Warlords and arms dealers ran rife, funding their atrocities with the sale of the diamonds, but Sudan didn't have much in the way of diamond mines.

'Boss, we got a hit.' called over McGee, 'There's a mine in southern Sudan that matches the description that was found in the box. It's owned by a local guy by the name of Samir Matak who has got quite the Interpol file. Weapons dealing, drug trafficking, extortion; he's got all the markings of a drug lord, and there's warrants for his arrest in France, Germany and Bulgaria. Checked his flight history and it looks like Matak is in the States. Got him arriving on a commercial flight about four days ago, he's staying at a five-star hotel downtown and is scheduled to leave next Monday.'

'Ziva, DiNozzo, bring him in.'

[0]

Author's note: okay, I don't normally do this, but I think an AN is important because a huge plot hole has become disgustingly obvious to me… Washington is quite a distance away from NYC, and me being an Australian didn't pick up on that to begin with - in my defence I've never studied American geography, and despite being able to name several of the states, I'm not all that good with the finer points of location… so for varying reasons, mainly because I'm already 1/3 of the way through, use your imagination to come up with reasons as to how Gibbs/NCIS team get there.

Also, Samir Matik is fictional, and no disrespect is meant towards anyone who shares the name, of same or similar spelling. His name was pulled from a quick Google search of 'respectable Sudanese names' and I picked two boys names that sounded like they might work together (and fairly easy to spell) furthermore, this fictional character does NOT represent any religious/tribal/cultist tendencies, lifestyles, and is not a representative of fanatics or zealots of any kind.

-Ena


	5. Chapter 5

[0]

It was early the next morning when everyone made their way to the Twelfth Precinct to continue their investigations. Phone calls were made, coffee was drunk and no leads were discovered. Beckett was getting frustrated with the NCIS team keeping information about their missing marine from her. It bugged her that they were no closer to solving the murder, especially since Matak alibied out and the supposed 'blood diamonds' were in fact a gift from him to Doyle for his aid in ridding his village of terrorists.

Castle sat down in his chair beside her desk and looked at her in concern.

'We're missing something here,' she said to him quietly, 'it's not the diamonds, we don't have anything linking the father to the murder, we can't clear him of anything either. There has to be something else, something other than her exposé, other than her research that got her killed.'

'What if it was a simple as something in one of her books?' he offered, 'It's not what I would write, but given past experiences it could just be as simple as that.'

'No, we went through the books, there was nothing defamatory in it, and we have no idea who they're based on anyways. Besides all things considered, when you've said previously that you wouldn't have written something a particular way, it's usually not what happened anyways.'

'Okay, striking books off the list, what about her friends? Ex-boyfriend gets upset that she spends more time with her work than with him?'

Beckett grimaced and tilted her head to the side, 'I'm listening.'

[0]

DiNozzo wasn't eavesdropping as such, more subtly listening in to a conversation being held near him. Detective Beckett was grasping at straws for leads to do with the murder, and was now listening to Richard Castle spiel on about possible past relationships that turned sour. It seemed to him like a petty excuse for murder, but then again, people had probably killed for less.

'Okay, but according to her friends she hasn't dated for about a year, busy as she's been with her books.' put in Beckett ,

'Well before that, anyone she dated that things ended badly with, possibly a jealous new girlfriend who is sick of her boyfriend raving about the famous girl he dated once?'

'You really think that's possible?' she said smirking,

'Well no, but it's an idea.'

'Since we're running dry on other leads, we don't know how far along these NCIS guys are at with finding her father so that's no help, we might just have to follow up on these past boyfriends.'

'Is there anyway we could get them to tell us where they're at?'

'I'd have to go through Agent Gibbs, who's more tight-fisted than Agent Fallon. He wouldn't tell me a thing and we'd get nowhere.'

'What about his agents? Surely you could ask them?'

'Why don't you coerce your new Agent Author buddy into telling you what he knows? I'm not going to interfere with procedure and risk losing my badge for insubordination.'

'I'm just sayi-'

'I know what you're saying Castle, but these guys have security clearances I only dream of having. They have access to records, resources and technology that is so far out of our reach, it's insane. Stepping a toe out of line with these guys could cost me my career and I'm not risking it.'

'What are we gonna do then?'

'Firstly, Ask Agent Gibbs for a status report, and upon failing that, we're going to search around for these potential ex-boyfriends you suggested.'

DiNozzo considered breaching protocol and telling them that they were no closer in finding Doyle, but after a nanosecond he decided to stay silent, he wanted to see how the showdown between the detective and Gibbs went.

[0]

Gibbs, surprisingly, told Detective Beckett the truth; that they were getting nowhere with their search for Doyle. It did nothing to ease her frustration, but she was thankful he'd been honest with her. Her irritation with everything only grew when they discovered that the only past boyfriend had broken things off with Leanne cordially over a year ago, and he was in a steady relationship with someone else. His new girlfriend was a fellow student and had never even met Leanne.

She was currently wrestling with the coffee machine in the break room as she vented her frustration and anger.

'You know you're supposed to turn the frothing knob all the way open?' came Castle's voice from behind her.

She turned off the machine, fisted her hands and glared at the window. Getting nowhere with this case had her on edge. A pair of hands gripped her shoulders and shuffled her over to the left a bit, the same pair of hands then went to work on the machine, expertly frothing the milk and pouring it into the waiting cups.

'Grand skim latte, two pumps, sugar free vanilla for you.' He announced as he handed it to her.

'Thankyou.' She said in reply, her nerves still on edge, but grateful that the coffee machine wasn't one of her problems.

They sat at the table in the break room, her hands wrapped around the cup, her mouth set in a hard line. Castle noticed this and did his best to reassure her,

'We'll figure it out.'

'Will we? Every lead we looked at is clean, Matak alibied out, the diamonds were thankyous not bribes, The ex-boyfriend and his girl are unrelated, the friends alibied out, the father is missing, presumably innocent.'

Castle looked up, his eyes lightening as a thought struck him 'What if the connection isn't through her, but her father?'

'What do you mean?'

'Well, Matak said the diamonds were a goodwill thankyou gift for helping to rid his village of terrorists. So what if one of these terrorists survived, emigrated to the US perhaps under a new name; ensuring his anonymity and then went about exacting revenge on those who he felt had wronged him.'

'So you're saying that there could be a terrorist out there hunting down families of those in the same corps group that Doyle was in, on their mission in Sudan?' asked Beckett.

'It's a possibility, I mean, Doyle's gone to ground, so maybe there was a whisper of revenge about when they stopped over in Sudan, he figures the person after the families would need to track them individually, so that explains why he never went home to his daughter, he was trying to keep her safe, but somehow the killer finds out where he lived and takes her out.'

'Which means that there would be a dozen other families in danger.'

'Exactly, so we're going to need to get Agent Gibbs to exercise his security clearance to find out who was on deployment in the same area when Doyle was there, and who was involved in the clean up of the village.'

'That only gives us a list of possible future victims, not a list of possible suspects who could be our killer.'

'No, but it would be safe to assume that who ever it is has recently come from Sudan, they'd have family or friends that were part of the terror cells, maybe even part of it themselves.'

[0]

'We called around boss,' called out DiNozzo, 'not only are all of the officers involved with the clean-out of Matak's village all fine and haven't received any threats, all of them received a pile of diamonds as a thankyou, and get this, over the past three weeks five of them had reported their share missing from personal safes in their houses. All of the officers had their diamonds insured when they came back, so we know a net worth of around three million dollars in diamonds has been stolen. I asked around since Doyle's stash was worth one mill itself, turns out Doyle headed the operation so he got a larger thankyou.'

The others looked up from their respective places, Gibbs and Captain Gates hovering close by. Castle's eyebrows furrowed at that last bit of information,

'No offence intended to your rank Captain Gates, but why was a Captain heading up an operation of that magnitude? Surely the one in charge would have been a Major, or a Commander at least.'

Beckett looked at Castle her expression matching his as she deciphered his meaning,

'You're saying that there could be a disgruntled Major out there who missed out on his "fair share" of sparkly thankyous because Doyle got the credit for his idea or work?' she asked

'Exactly. Imagine someone high-ranking who comes up with the brilliant idea to go around war-torn villages and free them from the terrorists. Then there's one village operation he's involved in, but maybe he gets injured, and has to leave the action before the job is finished. Then when the village leader hops around afterwards with several millions dollars worth of diamonds and hands them out to the men under your command, and then whilst you're resting in the infirmary, a captain, a respectable man you trusted is given the credit for not only clearing the village, but for having come up with the idea to do it in the first place. So what does he do? He waits until they're all back in the States, then he goes around, making sure that he gets his reward for his hard work, and as revenge for having the honour of recognition taken away from him, something he so desired, he takes away what the captain treasured most, his daughter.'

Although facing Beckett and directing his story towards her, he had the entire bullpen enthralled in his story.

'But why only murder Leanne, why not families of the other officers?' Beckett asked.

'Because the others didn't get the recognition of formulating the plan for the operation; doesn't recognition for exemplary service lead to medals and promotions?' he replied

'So,' Gibbs paused as he took it all in, 'you're saying we need to find someone involved in the unit, one who didn't get a reward, but really desires a promotion and recognition for his work?'

Castle bit his lower lip and then nodded,

'That's how I would write it, it would either be someone higher-ranking than a Captain, or a fellow Captain in a different unit who wanted in on the action.'

[0]


End file.
